As the 1914 $10 Federal Reserve Note above shows, hemp once seemed like part of a bountiful future for America. Hemp can be used to make virtually anything that is currently made of cotton, timber or petroleum.
Newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst owned millions of acres of timber land and led the crusade to ban hemp.

Pierre DuPont not only held the patent rights to the sulfuric acid wood pulp paper process but also patented nylon rope made from synthetic petrochemicals. Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon was DuPont’s backer and instrumental in criminalizing hemp.

Hemp was criminalized to protect the big money interests in the timber, petrochemical and cotton industries.

As the current political and economic conditions force many to wonder how we got here, more and more people seem willing to look at what we have lost. All the promised benefits of hemp are still possible to realize.

The article below indicates that the technology to better process and utilize hemp was just becoming available when the special interest groups managed to get it criminalized.

As you read this old article perhaps it will occur to you that now is the time to decriminalize hemp so that we may all benefit from hemp products.